At the time this article was
written Shirley Dysart was Speaker of the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly

Delegates to the 1993
Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians Group (CWPG) in Cyprus noted that half the
sessions at the Small Countries Conference were chaired by women and that women
played significant roles as panelists, secretaries and rapporteurs at the
Plenary Conference. At the same time, they recognized a glaring deficiency of
female representation at CPA conferences and seminars and expressed concern
about the status of the CWPG at Plenary Conferences and the general lack of
Association support for women parliamentarians. CWGP Members unanimously agreed
the Executive Committee constitute a task force to investigate barriers to
women's participation in Parliament and in the CPA which would consist of the
three women parliamentarians on the executive committee who would report
through the CWPG to the 1994 General Assembly. Named to the Task Force were
Shirley Dysart, then Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick;
Beryl A. Evans, MLC, Australia; and Winnifred Nyiva Kitili Mwendwa, MP, Kenya.
This article looks at the problems and prospects for women's participation in
CPA and in Parliaments generally.

What is missing from every official
photograph of delegates at annual Commonwealth Parliamentary Conferences? The
answer, of course is a significant number of women delegates! Current political
and constitutional arrangements everywhere assume that the masculine majority
in office can  and does  speak adequately for women. The national interest is
identified and articulated overwhelmingly by men. What men perceive as
important assumes women's tacit approval and agreement. The interests of both
genders are assumed to be identical. Many women and many men disagree. The fact
is that a world managed by men has a lot to answer for when they have managed
to transform the traditional food producers of Africa, namely women, into the
saddest victims of famine and shortages.1

Women comprise more than half the
world's population, yet in the majority of the world's democratic countries where
universal suffrage is and has been in place for decades, democracy is not, in
fact, completely at work. Except in rare instances, the laws of the land are
drafted, formulated, debated, passed and implemented by men.

Unless women are prepared to inch along
for another several hundreds years waiting until society ever so slowly evolves
 it is incumbent upon women at all levels of society to take action. The
fastest way for women to attain legislative and economic power is to take
control of the power which is rightfully theirs and of which they are currently
bereft.

Despite the fact that most
countries use democratic methods of choosing political leaders and that women
make up half the electorates, relatively few women reach the highest levels of
political participation and even fewer become public decision makers. Women are
largely absent from most forums where policy decisions affecting women's daily
lives are being made.

While few women are restricted in
law, a wide gap remains between women's de jure right to participate in
the electoral process and their de facto actual participation. By 1989
there were almost no countries where men could vote or stand for office but
women could not. An in-depth study of the world-wide phenomenon of
underrepresentation of women in positions of political power would take into
account differences between more industrialized and less industrialized
countries, voting systems, selection processes, the history of universal
suffrage, and the importance of the legislative chamber.

Barriers to Women's Election to
Office

The task force identified a number
of barriers to women's election to office. These include health and legal
barriers, cultural barriers, educational barriers, systemic barriers, and the
role of the media.

Health and Legal Barriers: A
country's environment must satisfy a certain hierarchy of basic needs before
the population can function as a society and before the respective genders can
even entertain the idea of participating in parliament. A billion human beings
go to bed hungry every night of their lives: the majority are women and
children.

The rights of women as persons may
not be enshrined in a country's national constitution or corresponding
document. Women's moral and physical integrity may remain threatened. Delegates
from India at the Cyprus conference pointed out that especially in developing
countries, women are born into a state of bondage and are victims of chattel
slavery, sexual exploitation and harassment, rape and violence. Bigamy,
polygamy and child marriages remain on the list of crimes against women.2 In
countries plagued by war, political authoritarian and military regimes restrict
women's open political participation.

Cultural Barriers: The predominant
social climate of a country, for example, its religious or cultural practices,
affects women's participation. Gender stereotyping is prevalent. Reproductive
roles tie women to housekeeping responsibilities and keep them from entering
politics until later in life than their male counterparts impeding upward
political mobility. Childcare costs eliminate potential capable candidates.
Women are often less assertive than men.

In old South Africa, the lack of
women's rights was buried under the fight against apartheid. Most married women
had a legal status similar to children  unable to sign contracts without their
husbands consent  and black women were permanently under the guardianship of
their fathers or spouses. In post-Apartheid South Africa, almost 1/4 of the 400
parliamentarians are women  a higher population of female representatives than
in Britain or the United States  and the influential position of Speaker is
held by a woman.3

Education: Because women have less
access to education than men, their professional advancement and chance to enter
institutions involved in corporate politics at an operative level are reduced.
Some societies and parents see their role in giving a full quality education to
women as a privilege that can be withdrawn. The impact of illiteracy on the
exercising of one's political rights has been the main basis for the dismal
representation of Kenyan women in national echelons of political leadership.4
Women do not enter non traditional occupations; instead women enter nurturing
or tertiary occupations which inhibit political life and the growth of self
confidence. There is a mindset on the part of many men and women that a role in
politics is unsuitable for a woman. An absence of suitable female role models
in government at the local, provincial and national levels enhances the idea
that politics is a "man's world" and eliminates politics as a
possible career choice for young women. There may be a sense on the part of
women to feel "comfortable"  the electorate is finally sending women
to parliament  things must be improving and women can relax. Not so: a number
of countries currently have fewer women in parliament than during the last
decade.

Systemic Barriers: The country's
electoral system poses more hurdles to women's entry. Winning the nomination to
run in an election or gaining a place on the list of candidates, depending on
the electoral system, can be a major obstacle. Countries which have adopted a
form of proportional representation (PR) consistently elect more women than
countries with single-member plurality systems or first-past-the-post (FPTP)
systems such as Canada's.

Political parties do not take the
responsibility they should to promote the democratic process of equating the
voice of men and women within Commonwealth legislatures. In most countries, including
Kenya, political parties conduct their activities with an objective to enhance
the political awareness of women, not as sectoral or national leaders, but as
faithful followers. Only one of the four political parties of Kenya has a woman
in its national executive committee.5 In India, many women contest seats as
independents, which implies that the political parties are by and large
reluctant to field women as candidates.

The selection of candidates for
election presents problems. Most of the world's women are without family
connections or a long history with either a political party or the political
system as it exists in their jurisdiction. They lack valuable experience and
skills often acquired by their counterparts through involvement in local government
or school boards. Women have lower membership rates in trade unions and
business organizations, often influential factors in the selection and election
process.

Many countries have no official
body mandated to collect data on the status of women, to track the achievements
of the nation's women, to speak out on women's issues, or to lobby for their
rights. Nongovernmental organizations (NGO) with resources and leadership to
mobilize women countrywide whose central role is to provide women with political
education and training are nonexistent.

Media: Mainstream media leave out
women in general, and the women's movement in particular, with a
comprehensiveness that has disturbing implications for a democracy.

CPA Selection of Delegates

The individual CPA Branch's methods
of selecting delegates may inadvertently preclude the selection of women. As
many ways of selecting delegates are in place as there are countries. Variables
include: the small base of women from which to choose, the practice of selecting
junior backbenchers and budget constraints. More often than not, the
government's few women members have been elevated to Cabinet posts. A delegate,
who is expected to participate, may opt out rather than be a lead-off speaker
in a Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference panel. In some countries, the party
in power may choose to send all the delegates from within its ranks.

Former Yukon Territory MLA Joyce
Hayden described her feeling of intense alienation as a delegate to the CPA
conference in Barbados in 1990: "For the first time in my life, I
experienced what it was like to be a minority of a minority of a minority. I
was a white person in a predominantly black organization. I was a woman in an
almost exclusively male organization and, of the few women there, most were
Senators. I was a rare bird - an elected white woman parliamentarian!"6
Globally, the concern about the numerous barriers and impediments to the full
participation of women in the political and parliamentary spheres of either
their nations, or indeed even international organizations like the Commonwealth
Parliamentary Association, has transcended gender boundaries. It is a matter
receiving close national and international attention; and is poised to remain
at the top of the agenda for the struggle to dismantle all forms of
discrimination against any group of humanity. Discrimination in any form can
not thrive in a sound democratic system. If parliaments and the entire
political spectrum of any national or international organization are to continue
to claim to be democratic, the full participation of women in all forms, must
not only be ensured, but it must also be seen in practice.7